Marine surveys usually employ geophysical sensors below the water's surface, e.g., in the form of long streamer cables towed behind a ship, or ocean-bottom cables resting on the ocean floor. Conventional marine survey streamer cables can often be 12 kilometers (km) long, and may include hundreds, or even thousands of geophysical sensors. Several such streamers are often positioned or towed in parallel over a survey region. Seismic and electromagnetic sources are also often attached to cables for towing or positioning on the ocean floor. The term “survey cable” will be used generically herein to cover all types of submerged cabling employed in conducting marine surveys including, but not limited to, tow cables for geophysical sources, streamer cables, and harness cables for the source/sensor array.
Marine surveys often last for weeks or months, which is more than enough time for the survey cables to attract barnacles and other unwanted wildlife or debris. Such materials tend to increase drag on the cables, thereby requiring a greater amount of towing energy and placing increased strain on the ship, the cables, and the positioning devices. Such material can also induce additional turbulence, which may impair the quality of the data acquired from the sensors distributed along the cable. Current methods of cleaning survey streamer cables tend to be time consuming and labor intensive.